Denzel Washington

Some Lesser Known Facts About Denzel Washington

• Does Denzel Drink Alcohol ? Yes

• Does Denzel Smoke ? No

• Denzel has earned 3 Golden Globe awards, 1 Tony Award and 2 Academy Awards (Oscars) for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Glory (1989). He also has won an award for Best Actor for Training Day.

• In the 2016 73rd Golden Globe Awards, he was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award.

• He was 14, when his parents divorced. He was raised in Mount Venon till then and after that, his mother shifted to New Windsor with him. Denzel said “That decision changed my life”. Later he explained that “because I wouldn’t have survived in the direction I was going. The guys I was hanging out with at the time, my running buddies, have now done maybe 40 years combined in the penitentiary. They were nice guys, but the streets got them.”

• Denzel Played collegiate basketball as a guard under the coaching of P.J. Carlesimo.

• When he was confused about which subjects to choose, he dropped out of school and worked as a creative director for at an overnight summer camp Sloane YMCA in Lakeville, Connecticut. His colleague suggested acting when he participated in a staff talent show for campers. 

• Denzel enrolled at the Lincoln Center to study acting where he was given the title roles in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones and d Shakespeare’s Othello.

• He was one of the very few African-Americans who appeared for the entire series of the six year long NBC drama St.Elsewhere; in which he played the role of Dr.Phillip Chandler.

• Denzel earned an Academy Award for Best Actor for playing the black nationalist in the movie Malcolm X.

• Washington won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the Training Day, in which he played  Detective Alonzo Harris, a corrupt Los Angeles cop.

• Denzel Washington was the second African to win an Academy Award. He also holds the record of being the only actor from the African descent who had six Academy Award nominations.

• Washington and “The Script” tried to come together for a project combining music and Hollywood. The project couldn’t get much mainstream attention because of legal conflicts between the parties.

• He received a  Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for playing Troy Maxson, opposite Viola Davis in the play August Wilson’s Fences.

• He also received  Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play in 2014 for reviving Lorraine Hansberry’s classic drama A Raisin in the Sun.

• Denzel donated US$2.5 million to help build the new West Angeles Church of God in Christ facility in Los Angeles in 1995. He is a devout Christian and reads Bible daily. He donated US$1 million each to Nelson Mandela’s Children’s Fund and  Wiley College to resuscitate the college’s debate team.

• He met his wife on the sets of his first acting project Wilma.

• Denzel Washington was one of the three people, along with directors Oliver Stone and Michael Moore, with home they were willing to negotiate for the release of three defense contractors.

• He received three honorary doctorate degrees from Fordham University, University of Pennsylvania and Morehouse college. He donated US$ 250,000 to Fordham College.